On 15 August 2025, Google Ads announced a global rollout of new Performance Max controls and reporting tools designed to give advertisers greater transparency and flexibility.
Performance Max updates
The latest release adds several long-requested features to the automated campaign type:
- Campaign-level negative keyword lists - create one list and apply it across every Performance Max campaign to streamline brand-safety management.
- Expanded search themes - the limit per asset group doubles from 25 to 50, giving advertisers more ways to steer where ads show in Search results.
- Device and demographic controls - inclusion or exclusion can now be set for mobile, desktop, and tablet. Age filters are fully live, while gender filters remain in limited beta.
- Cleaner new-customer reporting - the "Unknown" status is gone thanks to refined attribution logic, offering clearer counts of first-time vs. returning buyers.
- First-party acquisition signals - an optional conversion tag parameter lets brands flag first-time purchasers, improving bidding strategies that focus on growth.
- Goal diagnostics - the interface now highlights missing tags or misconfigured goals and provides inline fixes.
- Final URL Expansion transparency - auto-generated headlines, descriptions, and images now appear in asset reports with performance metrics, and anything off-brand can be removed.
- AI-driven image guidance - the built-in editor suggests optimal sizes, layouts, and additional visuals.
Performance Max background
Introduced in late 2021, Performance Max uses Google AI to allocate budget and assets across Search, Display, YouTube, Discover, Gmail, and Maps. While the format promises reach and efficiency, early adopters criticized limited control over keywords, devices, and reporting.
Google has responded incrementally, adding account-level negative keywords in January 2024 and asset-group reporting in November 2024. The new controls launched this week continue that trend and reinforce the new-customer acquisition bidding option introduced in March 2022.
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